The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34 (subtitle Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell) was written by Benjamin Britten in 1945 for a British Ministry of Education film, Instruments of the Orchestra; the film version (with narration...

REPRINT SERIES Irving G. Fine’s Diversions for orchestra (1959–60) is an orchestration of four short piano pieces that Fine scored for full orchestra (with optional saxophones). The set comprises Little Toccata, Flamingo Polka, Koko’s...

Grażyna Bacewicz’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (1945) is a three-movement work—I. Allegro ma non troppo (with substantial cadenza), II. Andante, III. Vivo—combining neoclassical clarity with propulsive rhythmic drive. The concerto was written...

Benjamin Britten’s Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 68, was composed in 1963 and dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the premiere with Britten conducting the Moscow Philharmonic on 12 March 1964. The work’s title reflects...

Benjamin Britten’s Simple Symphony, Op. 4, was written in 1933–34 and is wholly derived from themes he composed as a child; it is scored for string orchestra (also playable as a string quartet) and typically lasts about 16–18 minutes in...

REPRINT SERIES  Manuel de Falla’s “Interlude and Dance”  is the principal purely orchestral episode extracted from the second act of La vida breve. It is presented as a single orchestral scena that moves from a secco,...

Manuel de Falla’s Suite No. 2, Three Dances from El sombrero de tres picos, is an orchestral extraction of the principal dances from Part II of the 1919 ballet. he suite is scored for a medium-to-large orchestra with an emphasis on percussion...

REPRINT SERIES Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Suite for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 30 (1913), is an early orchestral showpiece that transforms a set of piano character pieces into a three-movement suite for piano solo with orchestral accompaniment. The three...

Manuel de Falla’s Suite No. 1, Scenes and Dances from El sombrero de tres picos, is an orchestral extraction of the principal dances from Part I of the 1919 ballet. Musically the suite condenses the ballet’s Andalusian...

REPRINT SERIES  Jacob Gade’s Bryllup på Himmelpind (1940) is a rustic orchestral suite evoking childhood memories of village weddings near his birthplace; the work was originally in six movements but was revised and published in a...

Danza ritual del fuego (Ritual Fire Dance) is the best-known movement from Manuel de Falla’s ballet El amor brujo, originally composed as a gitanería (gypsy piece) around 1915 and later presented in orchestral versions associated with the...

Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Flourish for Glorious John (1957) was written as a short ceremonial opener for Sir John Barbirolli to inaugurate the Hallé Orchestra’s centenary season; it is a compact fanfare-like orchestral piece lasting...

REPRINT SERIES  Arthur Honegger’s Prélude, Fugue et Postlude (H.71a) is an orchestral suite in three linked sections—Prélude, Fugue and Postlude—arranged in 1948 from material associated with his earlier Amphion...

Manuel de Falla’s El retablo de maese Pedro (Master Peter’s Puppet Show) is a one-act puppet-opera with prologue and epilogue, set to a Spanish libretto drawn from Cervantes’s Don Quixote. The score is compact—about 27...

El Corregidor y la Molinera is a pantomime‑ballet in two tableaux composed by Manuel de Falla between 1916 and 1917 to a scenario by Gregorio Martínez Sierra after Pedro Antonio de Alarcón’s novella. The work combines spoken mime,...

Darius Milhaud’s Les Cloches, Op. 259 (“The Bells”), dates from 1946 and is a six‑movement symphonic suite adapted from his lost ballet after Edgar Allan Poe’s poem. The movements—Ouverture: Animé; Cloches...

Heitor Villa‑Lobos’s Vidapura (Missa Oratório), W155, was composed in 1919 as an expanded, orchestral version of his earlier organ‐accompanied Missa Oratória (W154) and premiered in November 1922 in Rio de Janeiro. Structured in...

REPRINT SERIES  Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Prelude and Fugue in C minor, IRV 65, occupies a unique place in his output as one of the few concert works directly modeled on Baroque forms. Originally conceived in 1921 as an organ study and later...